UdderQuarterInfectionData: Udder Quarter Infection Data

The udder quarter infection data set contains infection times of individual cow udder quarters with Corynebacterium bovis (Laevens et al. 1997 <doi:10.3168/jds.S0022-0302(97)76295-7>). Obviously, the four udder quarters are clustered within a cow, and udder quarters are sampled only approximately monthly, generating interval-censored data. The data set contains both covariates that change within a cow (e.g., front and rear udder quarters) and covariates that change between cows (e.g., parity [the number of previous calvings]). The correlation between udder infection times within a cow also is of interest, because this is a measure of the infectivity of the agent causing the disease. Various models have been applied to address the problem of interdependence for right-censored event times. These models, as applied to this data set, can be found back in the publications found in the reference list.